v1.4.0 - Tri-Engine System & Article Illustration Constraints

What's New

Tri-Engine System

• New Excalidraw engine for hand-drawn concept diagrams, comparisons, and simple flows
• Three-tier priority: Gemini → Excalidraw → Mermaid
• All diagram engines now output PNG by default
• --engine parameter: auto / gemini / excalidraw / mermaid
• --mermaid-embed to fall back to code block embedding

Mermaid Usage Threshold Raised

• Mermaid restricted to complex diagrams only (>8 nodes, multi-layer architecture, multi-actor sequence diagrams)
• Simple concepts, comparisons, and basic flows now default to Excalidraw

Article Illustration Constraints

• Default aspect ratio changed from 3:4 to 16:9 for inline article images
• 3:4 and 1:1 prohibited for article illustrations (3:4 reserved for vertical platforms like Xiaohongshu)
• Whitespace ≥ 40%, single metaphor per image, visual echo with cover

Cover Safe Zone

• Core visuals must stay within center 71% height for 16:9 → 5:2 cross-platform compatibility
• Supports Newsletter, WeChat (16:9) and X Article (5:2 crop) from a single image

Dependencies (optional)

cd ~/.claude/skills/smart-illustrator/scripts && npm install && npx playwright install firefox